


luck be [my] lady tonight

by Morcai



Series: Eternal Flame [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Grieving, M/M, Multi, chronic sorrow, luck magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-15
Updated: 2014-01-15
Packaged: 2018-01-08 21:35:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morcai/pseuds/Morcai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever one sows, that will he also reap. [bossuet’s hands are very small]</p>
            </blockquote>





	luck be [my] lady tonight

After Musichetta vanishes, Bossuet spends a month gleaning every measure of luck he can out of the air, out of every horseshoe nailed over a doorway, every four-leaf clover, every penny on the sidewalk.

He gathers luck close and clutches Joly tightly every night as they share a bed that seems suddenly too large without Musichetta’s restless sprawl. He doesn’t try to grip the rage that burns cold and vicious at the memory of Musichetta’s cut-off shout. It flares every time his eyes fall on something of hers, any one of a thousand things scattered around the apartment, and it curls around his fingers anyway.

He’s never thought he had small hands before, not compared to Musichetta or Joly, but it turns out his hands are tiny and he can only hold these three things—luck, Joly and anger.

He doesn’t go to class, just roams the city, the shimmery not-quite-real gold dust of luck curling into his hands and under his skin until he feels gilded, but it’s not enough.

Maybe when he’s painted in luck an inch thick, Musichetta will find her way back to them.

(He tries, and when his limbs feel stiff and his body feels heavy and chance bends around him, she still doesn’t come home. He starts letting it go, not quite giving up, never that, but after a month and a half her absence almost stops feeling like someone ripped the stars out of the sky.)

But chance remains flexible (how much luck is he keeping under his skin, he still feels so heavy) and when he meets a woman drawing shield diagrams in a cafe, he strikes up a conversation. She is old but still lovely, and her suit is elegant, that sticks in his memory.

He doesn’t pay much attention over the course of their conversation until she says the words that still his breath.

"—and she says two men, and if that’s not a sign of how morals are falling apart these days I don’t know what is. But I took her back under my wing, though she wasn’t happy about it ungrateful girl, said something about me not having the right.”

Then everything is very, very clear, and he can hold onto this, at least. Luck and anger and Joly, and this is all of them.

He lays a hand on hers and meets her eyes and doesn’t bother to explain before he presses his fingers down and focuses and rips the luck out of her, every last mote of it.

She feels it, and she stares at him, speechless and swaying. It must hurt, having nothing there. She’s not just luckless now, she’s actively unlucky, a negative space in the pale gold currents. Misfortune will follow her like a curse, but there’s not even a trace of Bossuet’s magic on her.

"Good day," he bids her, and leaves the cafe.

(he replants her luck in a man and his dog, and gives them his last twenty.)

(rage and luck and Joly, his hands are only big enough for the three of them. if he couldn’t hold onto half of his heart, what chance does money have?)


End file.
